But this is not the case with another of the brutal gamekeeper's victims, that exquisite little falcon, the kestrel. All day long it is busy at the good work which the owl takes up at nightfall, for it lives almost entirely upon mice, and, these failing, upon large insects, especially the destructive cockchafer. It so very rarely molests a bird that, hawk though it is, you never see the smaller feathered-folk in alarm at its approach. "He is no enemy of theirs, and mingles freely with them, almost unheeded." Observe what consternation the sparrow-hawk brings to the little songsters when he is abroad; but how different when the kestrel passes overhead! The chaffinch, instead of uttering cries of alarm, continues his merry notes; and the larks and pipits pay no attention to the little bird of prey. When it hovers over the farmyard, or hunts round the ricks, no anxious hen clucks to her scattered family any note of warning or recall, the sparrows continue at their meal, and the swallows, unconcerned and trustful, wheel twittering in the air. Its nest is sometimes found in holes in buildings where doves and starlings are its companions. But for mice of all kinds the kestrel has only unrelenting and ceaseless hostility; and it has been calculated that a single pair will account in a season for the astonishing number of ten thousand. Its favourite method of hunting makes the kestrel a familiar bird by sight, and gives it its name of "windhover," for, "as if let down from the heaven there By viewless silken thread," it hangs suspended in the air over a given spot, until it either [Illustration: WHERE THE KESTRELS BUILD] sees a mouse below it, upon which it then drops with lightning speed, or else decides that there is nothing there, when it moves on a little further and hovers again, thus beating a field or moor thoroughly over before it leaves it. And while it is thus engaged the gamekeeper steals upon it and shoots it, and, taking it home, the mutton-headed ignoramus that he is, nails it up on his "tree," in the company of that other good friend of man, the owl. "_Long-necked Heron, dread of nimble eels._" LEYDEN. "_Unhappy bird! our fathers' prime delight,_ _Who fenced thine eyry round with sacred laws,_ _Nor mighty princes now disdain to wear_ _Thy waving crest, the mark of high command._" SOMERVILLE.